CVE-2021-38868
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIBM Engineering Requirements Quality Assistant On-Premises (All versions) is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery which could allow an attacker to execute malicious and unauthorized actions transmitted from a user that the website trusts. IBM X-Force Id: 208310.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · high confidenceIBM Engineering Requirements Quality Assistant On-Premises versions is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery (CSRF). This allows an attacker to trick authenticated users into executing unintended malicious actions on the application, as the application does not properly validate that requests originate from legitimate user sessions.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE dataall versionsCVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- Required
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- High
- Availability
- None
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:N
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm IBM Engineering Requirements Quality Assistant On-Premises is accessibleAccess the application's web interface through its known URL or port and verify you can reach the login or dashboard pageAffected if The application is accessible and responding to HTTP requests
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Inspect forms for anti-CSRF token presenceLog into the application and use browser developer tools or view page source to examine HTML forms that perform state-changing actions (create, update, delete operations). Look for hidden input fields containing token values or unique session identifiersAffected if Forms handling sensitive operations lack anti-CSRF token fields or tokens are absent
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Verify SameSite cookie attributesAfter authenticating, open browser developer tools, go to the Application or Storage tab, and inspect the session cookies for the application. Check the SameSite attribute value on each cookieAffected if Cookies have SameSite set to None, Lax without secure flag, or the SameSite attribute is completely missing
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Test Referer header handlingUse a web proxy or browser extension to intercept a state-changing request and modify or remove the Referer header, then forward the request to see if the application accepts itAffected if The application processes requests with missing or altered Referer headers without rejecting them
If the application is running and any of these checks reveal missing anti-CSRF tokens, improper cookie attributes, or lack of Referer validation, the environment is affected by CVE-2021-38868
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataImplement anti-CSRF tokens on all state-changing operations and configure SameSite cookie attributes. Additionally, implement proper Referer header validation for sensitive requests.
- Consultation3.0 h
- Implementation6.0 h
- Testing4.0 h
- Review / QA2.0 h
An estimate, not a bill — we confirm scope with you before any work starts. Need it this week? Rush from $4,224.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2021-38868 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2021-38868 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
- No weaponised exploit code, or anything meant to cause harm
- No spam, self-promotion, credentials, or personal data